The position of the “district of Shetau or (Shetep)” is uncertain. The
inscription merely says that the king went down stream, and that the
journey took him a night to accomplish, but the name of the place from
whence Amenhetep and his officers started is not recorded. Mr. Fraser
(_P.S.B.A._, XXI, p. 157) suggests Memphis as the starting place, and
the Wadŷ Tumilât as the scene of the hunt, and he further remarks that
“except the Fayûm, there is no place that I can think of in Upper
Egypt where one can imagine there were ever wild cattle.” I suspect,
however, that it was from Thebes that the royal hunter set out, and
that the district of Shetau (or Shetep) was one of those wadŷs near
Keneh (just a night’s journey from Thebes down stream) which at
certain times of the year contain low, but luxuriant vegetation. I
have visited this district several times (in February 1896, again in
December 1901, and for a third time in March 1904), and was much
struck by the great quantity of vegetation which is to be seen in the
desert to the east of Kuft and Keneh. There is one wadŷ in particular
which extends for some miles in a northerly direction between Legêta
and Keneh that literally abounds in low shrubs and other vegetation,
far more than enough to support vast herds of wild cattle. It may here
be pointed out that the ancient fauna of Egypt differed very greatly
from its present fauna. Before the advent of the camel into Egypt, all
the wadŷs of the Arabian chain of hills were plentifully stocked with
game of all kinds. At Beni Hasan, El Bersheh, and many other places
are represented scenes of hunting wild animals, including the lion,
bubalis, etc.; and the wadŷs east of Keneh were celebrated as hunting
grounds at the time of Thothmes III and Amenhetep II. In more than one
private tomb at Thebes we have scenes of hunting which are expressly
stated to have taken place “in the _Ant_,” _i.e._, the desert to the
east of Kuft, and in the tomb of Men-kheper-ra-senb the superintendent
of the hunting at Kuft is mentioned.
Footnote 131:
On this title, see my note in Garstang’s _El Arabeh_, p. 33.
Footnote 132:
Driving the animals into nets was a favourite method of hunting in
ancient times (_cf._, among many other instances, my _El Bersheh_, I,
pl. VII, and the Vaphio Vase at Athens). Nets are still used for this
purpose in some parts of Africa (Baker’s _Ismailia_, pp. 435-438).
Footnote 133:
Dr. Budge has suggested to me that this dyke may have been a series of
covered pits into which the animals would fall, thus enabling the
huntsmen to capture them easily. He would also identify the _semau_ of
the Egyptians with the _rimi_ of the Assyrian inscriptions, an animal
hunted by Tiglath Pileser and other monarchs.
Footnote 134:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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